A NEW CENTRE TO HELP CANADA’S NURSES ENHANCE THEIR SKILLS

Coming out of the pandemic, Canada’s health care system found many new challenges and many new nurses in hospital wards. This created a need for learning opportunities that The Michener Centre for Post-Graduate Nursing Education (Michener CNE) is stepping up to provide.

“Having The Michener Centre for Post-Graduate Nursing Education is really important to the health system right now,” says Pam Hubley, Vice-President of Health Disciplines and Chief Nursing Executive at University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto.

“We need to invest in nurses to enable them to access the education that will help them develop the knowledge and skills to deliver high quality care.”

A new addition to The Michener Institute of Education at UHN, the Michener CNE has partnered with hospitals and community-based organizations to deliver a flexible, hybrid model of education. Courses use the latest evidence-based practices and are designed to integrate hands-on experience, mentorship and virtual learning.

“With the complexities of patients evolving and changing, there’s a need to be able to keep up with skills and critical thinking skills in order to provide that enhanced patient care,” says Klara Malkova, Course Coordinator and Instructor, Critical Care Nursing Program at Michener.

“The Michener Centre for Post-Graduate Nursing Education fills that need.”

The Michener CNE benefits from the unique advantage presented by Michener, a postsecondary institution under the UHN umbrella. As a part of one of Canada’s largest and highly touted hospital networks, Michener’s courses are taught by experts in their field, with course content drawn from relevant and current experiences.

Certificate programs and courses at the Michener CNE include critical care nursing, acute care nursing, pediatric physical assessment, adult physical assessment and more.

As new nursing challenges emerge over time, Hubley says the Michener CNE will remain an invaluable resource to the hospital workforce and to the overall care of Canadians.

“We know there are challenges and opportunities we haven’t even seen yet that a place like the Centre for Post-Graduate Nursing Education will be responding to and creating programming for,” she says, “and that will help us evolve the health system into the future.”